No. 2, 2009

The interest to biogas power engineering grows in Russia

One of the most interesting alternative energy sources is biogas - an effective and environmentally-friendly fuel. Russia is a world leader of natural gas production but a modest user of biogas technologies. However, the nation's tremendous bioresource potential, coupled with growing costs of natural gas production and transportation serves to boost biogas energy development, first of all in rural areas of Russia.

A little bit of history

The word "gas" owes its origins to biogas. This term was coined in the 17th century by Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579-1644), a famous Flemish chemist and natural scientist. Van Helmont experimented with the decomposing biomass and found out that it made inflammable gases. In the 18th century, another famous scientist, Italian Alessandro Volta, scientifically substantiated the presence of methane in biological gas based on the results of his research into marsh gas properties.

According to historical data, in the mid-19th century, Indian peasants cooked meals using the gas discharged from the manure tanks. In Europe, biogas began to be used at the end of the 19th century in England: in 1895, street lamps in one of the neighborhoods of Exeter, Devonshire, were fed with sewage gas. Such examples of biogas use in various parts of the planet are numerous; however, this fuel had not been in mass use for a long time.

In Russia, research into methane fermentation began in the 1940s. The first pilot bioenergy facility was built in the USSR in the 1950s. However, this technology did not become widespread as the traditional energy resources were in abundance and cheap. In the mid-1970s, however, a world energy crisis made the USSR government try to pursue a policy of energy saving in the country and the interest to biogas technologies revived. Besides, at that time, a lot of livestock breeding complexes were created in the national agriculture and they faced the problem of utilizing manure sewage - an ideal raw material for biogas production.

In 1979, the biogas sector got a powerful shot in the arm thanks to adoption of a special long-term government program for bioenergy development. The bioenergy production facilities were to be set up at distilleries and major stock breeding complexes and poultry factories. A number of biogas units were built in Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia. The USSR collapse in 1991 had a negative impact on that promising economic sector, yet nearly a hundred of biogas facilities had been constructed in Russia mainly for agricultural applications.

A long way to biogas

Today, Russia is the world leader in natural gas production. In 2008, it produced about 663 billion m3 of gas. The country also occupies the first place in terms of proven gas reserves which stand at 45 trillion m3, i.e. nearly one fourth of the world's reserves. Formally, the economic life of proven reserves will exceed 70 years, based on the current level of gas production.

However, natural gas exploration and production costs are inevitably going up, as major onshore shallow gas reserves become less scarce in Russia. Large-scale gas production on the Russian sea shelf calls for tremendous investment: the epoch of cheap natural gas is drawing to a close. Besides, Gazprom's export obligations are so impressive that even today they are partially fulfilled through Central Asian gas re-export.

Yet, the development of the biogas sector is capable of compensating to a certain extent for a decline in natural gas production. According to official statistics, Russia annually accumulates up to 300 million tons of organic wastes in dry equivalent, with agriculture and households accounting for 250 million tons and 50 million tons, respectively. These wastes are potential feedstock for biogas production. At the same time, there is a potential for producing 90 billion m³ of biogas and up to 60 million tons of valuable organic fertilizer a year.

Today, the share of alternative energy in Russia is less than 1%. However, according to the EcoRos Center, a leading manufacturer of biogas plants in the CIS, Russia occupies the first place in the world in terms of the volume of bioresources. By 2020-2030, the country's reserves of renewable biological feedstock are likely to total 4.4 billion tons a year with the energy content of 1.35 billion tons in oil equivalent. This will allow both producing motor biofuel and generating other types of energy. The amount of feedstock required for biogas production in the same period will be no less impressive - 2.9 billion tons a year with the energy content of 430 million tons in oil equivalent.

Cheap energy for Russian village

According to Rosstat data, among 142 million people in Russia there are over 38 million of rural residents with less than 20% of them engaged directly in agriculture. Biogas energy progress can be a major driver behind the development of Russia's agribusiness and rural communities.

The Russian village needs biogas to replace the traditional types of fuel. According to expert estimates, over 14 billion m³ of biogas a year are needed to meet the rural households' daily requirements, including heating, and some 21 billion m³ per year to generate electricity. Thus, with a potential for producing nearly 90 billion m³ of biogas, there still remains a considerable reserve of the feedstock for sale.

In theory, the entire volume of biogas produced will find its application. This fact is corroborated by the data on the scope of alternative and small-scale power generation in Russia. Operating in the country are nearly 50,000 stand-alone power plants (47,000 diesel fuelled), 180,000 individual boiler plants, 3 million gas boilers for hot-water and heat supply. About 70% of Russian territory are off-grid, and nearly 30 million people can be provided with electricity only by alternative sources.

Some 20 million people, mainly small community residents, still lack reliable electricity supply. Thousands of villages have no communications and hard surface roads. Hence a rural exodus which wiped over 10,000 rural localities off the map of Russia and left more than 12,000 villages with elderly residents only in the early 1990s. The situation is likely to grow worse in the near future, if Gazprom reduces domestic gas supplies in favor of export deliveries.

Bioenergy development in Russian villages can improve the living conditions of the local residents, create new jobs and reduce the population exodus from rural areas.

Environmental benefits

Biogas has similar properties as natural gas: it contains from 50% to 70% of methane, is easily stored and transported. Biogas facility construction costs do not exceed those of building a gas pipeline in a given territory. The cost of biogas production is about 15-20 euros per 1,000 m³, while the same amount of natural gas costs producing companies 25-30 euros. One cubic meter of biogas burnt in a cogeneration plant generates 2 kW.

Biogas production helps prevent methane emissions into the atmosphere. Methane is 21 times stronger than CO2 in terms of greenhouse effect and persists in the atmosphere for 12 years. Using methane is the best short-term way to combat global warming. Biohumus obtained from cattle and poultry manure, slaughterhouse waste, brewer pellets, DDGS, beet presscakes and sewage runoff is used as fertilizer in agriculture. This allows decreasing the use of chemical fertilizers and, according to statistics, increasing the harvest by 40 to 50%.

In early 2009, Moscow's first mini biogas-fuelled thermal power plant (TPP) constructed at the Kuryanovo wastewater treatment plant, was commissioned to supply the city with 10 MW of clean electricity and provide for improved wastewater treatment. The district TPP does not feed on Gazprom's gas but itself is producing it from the sewage runoff coming from the city and adjacent areas of the Moscow Region. The facility's design capacity of 3,125,000 m³ of wastewater a day is enough to provide water removal services to 6 million residents. The Mosvodokanal company plans to build two more such mini-TPPs, including at the Lyubertsy wastewater treatment plant.

In February 2009, the PRODO holding company, one of the biggest players in the Russian meat-processing market, belonging to Roman Abramovich, signed a contract with the ZORG company on constructing biogas power plants. The production of gas from chicken manure will save the poultry factory its manure disposal and electricity costs. The agricultural holding company will also economize handsomely on mineral fertilizers spending. All in all, PRODO intends to build 28 biogas power plants at Russia's farms and meat-packing factories to a total amount of over 3 billion rubles.

These examples are practical proof of Russia's growing interest to biogas use. The nation's tremendous research and feedstock potential enables it to actively develop the production of a wide range of various biofuels, including biogas, and even lay claim to world leadership in this promising sector of the economy.